Pep Guardiola’s body language provided compelling evidence that he is now facing the closest thing to a crisis since his transitional first season at Manchester City.
Guardiola had already been perching anxiously on one knee, his face wreathed in anguish, well before Joao Pedro's 77th-minute equaliser started the Brighton comeback that inflicted a fourth successive defeat, City’s first such sequence since 2006.
It also means Guardiola is on the worst run of his entire managerial career, having never before lost four games in a row in normal time.
The Catalan, who arrived at Manchester City in the summer of 2016, had been on hot bricks from the first whistle at Amex Stadium, his mood made worse by Matt O'Riley racing through a creaking defence to score Brighton's deserved winner seven minutes from the end of a thunderous encounter.